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Diamond announces Graphic Novel Author Breakfast open registration

Diamond Book Distributors and Reed Exhibits are thrilled to announce the opening of registration for the first Graphic Novel Author Breakfast, a new marquee event at this year’s Book Expo in Los Angeles.

The Graphic Novel Author Breakfast will be held from 8:00 to 9:30 am on Saturday, May 31, at the Book Expo in room 403A-B in the Los Angeles Convention Center. It will be just one of over a dozen programs that will emphasize the explosive impact graphic novels are having on the publishing and book retail industry. To register and purchase tickets for the breakfast, go to http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/en-us/registernow.cfm.

The breakfast will be hosted by Jeff Smith, and include speakers Jeph Loeb, Mike Mignola, and Art Spiegelman, an all-star line up of award-winning comics and graphic novel creators who have played major roles in the evolution of the graphic novel format in North America.

BEA has long hosted the popular Book and Author Breakfast and Children’s Book and Author Breakfast; this year is the first time a Breakfast has been designed to highlight leading graphic novel authors. With the graphic novel category still experiencing double-digit growth, this new breakfast will be an opportunity for a panel of legendary comics veterans to reflect on the past and future trajectory of a format that is changing the face of both publishing and bookselling.

Sponsored by Diamond Book Distributors, Publisher’s Weekly, the New York Comic Con, Marvel, Dark Horse, Cartoon Books, and Toon Books, this year’s Graphic Novel Authors Breakfast will feature the following authors:

Jeph Loeb, an Emmy- and WGA-nominated film, television writer, and producer of hit shows such as Smallville and Lost, and co-executive producer on the NBC hit show Heroes. He has also won many major comics awards as a writer for some of the industry’s most well-known characters, including Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America, and Wolverine among many others. He is currently writing The Ultimates and Hulk for Marvel.

Mike Mignola, the creative force behind the Hellboy graphic novel series, which has spawned several spin-off titles, two anthologies of short stories, several novels, two animated films, and two live-action Hellboy films starring Ron Perlman. He has been Visual Consultant for both Hellboy movies, including this summer’s Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (to be released July 11, 2008). Mike lives somewhere in southern California with his wife, daughter and cat.Art Spiegelman, best known for his masterful Holocaust narratives Maus and Maus II, which in 1992 won a Pulitzer Prize. Born in Stockholm in 1948, Spiegelman rejected his parents’ aspirations for him to become a dentist, and began to study cartooning in high school and drawing professionally at age 16. He was the cofounder/editor of RAW, the acclaimed magazine of avant-garde comics and graphics. His drawings and prints have been exhibited in museums and galleries here and abroad. In addition to the Pulitzer, Spiegelman has been honored with a Guggenheim fellowship and nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His last book, In the Shadow of No Towers, was selected by the New York Times as one of the 100 most notable books of 2004. In Fall 2008, he will be publishing the graphic novel Breakdowns with Pantheon Books, and a children’s comic storybook called Jack and the Box with Toon Books. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

Jeff Smith, well known for his comic book and graphic novel series Bone, originally self-published and now a bestselling series with Scholastic’s Graphix imprint. Smith grew up in Columbus, Ohio, where he made his mind up to become a cartoonist at nine years of age after a classmate brought a copy of some of Walt Kelly’s Pogo comics to school. He recently wrote DC Comics’ SHAZAM! Monster Society of Evil, a four-part mini-series recreating a classic Golden Age serial, and is currently publishing a new sci-fi noir series called RASL with his own company, Cartoon Books. He currently resides with his wife in Columbus, Ohio.

Diamond Book Distributors is a division of Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., the largest distributor of English-language comic books and related merchandise. Diamond Book Distributors is dedicated to making graphic novels and other pop culture collectibles available to the widest possible audience.

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ABOUT DIAMOND BOOK DISTRIBUTORSâ€” Diamond Book Distributors is a division of Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., and is dedicated to making a wide selection of graphic novels and other pop culture collectibles available to the mainstream book market. For more information, visit Diamond Books on web at www.diamondbookdistributors.com.